League: Kiwi rues masterly moves of playmaker Lockyer

Greg Eastwood at a Kiwis training session. Photo / Getty Images

Greg Eastwood is not used to losing this season.

Enjoying a career renaissance with the similarly resurgent Bulldogs, Eastwood was expecting his Suncorp Stadium homecoming - he played 64 times for the Broncos between 2005-08 - to provide a happier ending than it did.

It was of little comfort to him that the man he felt did most of the damage to his Kiwis side was a former team-mate.

"Darren Lockyer was the master," he said of the Australian captain and playmaker. "When they got opportunities, he knew how to exploit them and you can't give him that much space."

New Zealand's own "master" playmaker, Benji Marshall, had a typically mercurial night. His was the dreadful pass from the base of the scrum that Iosia Soliola shelled.

From the ensuing scrum, Lockyer worked a move to the left that saw Israel Folau cross. But he was heavily involved in attack, mixing up his kicks well and probing with the ball in his hands.

If anything, his team-mates struggled to synchronise themselves with his rather unique sense of timing but that is to be expected in a one-off game.

It was the execution of multiple sets, from both an attacking and defensive standpoint, that Eastwood believed hurt the Kiwis.

"We had about five sets of six in their 20m at the start of the match but they defended their line really well," Eastwood said. "We didn't build on the momentum we got from that."

On the other side of the ball, every time the Australians got a piggy-back penalty or forced an error, they seemed to score with some ease.

"Our defence let us down," Eastwood, 22, admitted. "We'd get off our line well in the first set of six but then our aggression would drop off and they've got a guy like Lockyer that can pick holes in your line when you lose that aggression."

While most would argue that the scoreline was an accurate reflection of the game and of Australia's ability to turn pressure into points, Eastwood couldn't let the fact pass that there were a few decisions that didn't go the Kiwis' way.

Most notably he would have been referring to an offside decision given against Jerome Ropati early when he was clearly onside and in position to score; a try ruling to Johnathan Thurston that on another day could have been ruled out for a Glenn Stewart knock-on; and a try ruling in favour of Darius Boyd when it seemed probable that at least some part of him had cut the sideline chalk.

But New Zealand would do well to remember, too, that the Kangaroos had one dead-set try ruled out for the most tenuous of obstructions and, five months ago at the same venue, they received the rub of the green.